EIU guard lights up scoreboard

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

Who is Henry Domercant?

Probably the best college basketball player you never heard of, and he's here to play the University of Hawai'i tonight in the Adidas Festival.

Domercant is a 6-foot-4 senior guard for Eastern Illinois. He and the Panthers will face the Rainbow Warriors in tonight's feature game, around 8 p.m.

"I don't know if many people do know about him," said EIU head coach Rick Samuels. "But he's been doing this for us since his sophomore year."

That would be scoring a lot of points.

Through eight games this season, Domercant has scored more than 30 points three times. His average of 25.6 points per game is fifth among NCAA Division I players.

"It's something different every night," Domercant said. "I'm known for my jump shooting. That's my strength. But I like to think of myself as being able to score in a lot of different ways."

He already proved that. As a sophomore, he finished fourth in the NCAA with 22.8 points per game; last season, he finished second with 26.4.

If he is able to maintain his pace this season, Domercant would become the 11th player in NCAA history to finish among the top five scorers in the nation for three different seasons.

He is already EIU's all-time leading scorer, and should score the 2,000th point of his career early tonight (he currently has 1,997). He has also scored more than 30 points in 21 different games during his career.

"He's a major concern," UH head coach Riley Wallace said. "We'll try and get some things ready to defend him, but I don't know if you can really shut him down completely because he's such a big part of their offense."

Not that constant double-teams and specially designed defenses have bothered Domercant in the past.

"He's a tireless worker; he will wear defenders out," Samuels said. "He can catch and shoot with people in his face, or he can draw a foul and make free throws."

By the end of the season, Domercant hopes to shoot EIU into the NCAA Tournament, and himself into the NBA Draft. He actually declared for early entry into the NBA Draft after last season, but decided to return to EIU because the reviews were not up to his lofty standards.

"Basically, everything I was hearing was I would be a late second-round pick, or a free agent," Domercant said. "I believe I have the talent to be drafted in the first round, and if it took me one more year to prove it, then I was willing to do that."

• Tough travel: Flight delays and an itinerary mix-up forced some Panthers — and head coach Samuels — to miss practice Wednesday night.

"We'll try not to let it affect us," Samuels said. "But it was real disruptive."

• • •